Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
It’s all about the FedEx Cup this week
Some big names missing, but still big money ahead at Tour Championship
The field for the Tour Championship is set, and why it is even being called that remains a bit of a mystery. It’s all about the FedEx Cup, the season-ending tournament on the PGA Tour schedule and the culmination of a three-tournament playoff series.
So, really, it’s all about the money.
Sure, the winner in Atlanta will be credited with a tour victory even if he doesn’t shoot the lowest 72-hole score, and he’ll haul away a cool Cup, although it’s unclear if it would be big enough to hold the $15 million.
When the PGA Tour unveiled its FedEx Cup format in 2007, much of the buzz was about the money. It was a surefire way to attract attention as well as the players, who drifted aimlessly following the PGA Championship as the golf season limped to a conclusion prior to the FedEx Cup format.
Back then, the bonus money to the winner was a whopping $10 million. This year, it is $15 million, with an overall pool of $60 million being divvied up.
Brooks Koepka all but said as much when he replied to a Twitter troll calling him out for not “trying hard” and suggesting he stop playing and “go drive a truck.”
Koepka’s reply:
“Brink’s truck?”
Yep, that kind of sums it up this week in Atlanta, where even the last-place finish will earn $385,000.
Justin Thomas, who won for the 10th time on the PGA Tour with his victory Sunday at the BMW Championship, gets to sleep on a two-shot lead for the next several days before he even tees off at East Lake.
As part of the new format, there will be a staggered-strokes start as opposed to a FedEx Cup points reset, meaning that Thomas will start at 10 under par, with Patrick Cantlay two strokes back at 8 under, followed by Koepka at 7 under all the way down to the final qualifier, Jason Kokrak, at even par.
As crazy as it sounds, it will be far easier to follow than in years past, as it’s now strokes on the scoreboard, with points eliminated. There is that pesky matter of no separate tournament champion being crowned, but the biggest potential issue was eliminated when Tiger Woods failed to qualify for the Tour Championship.
He won’t be able to defend his title, but really, there is no title to defend. The one he captured last year — his 80th PGA Tour title after five years without a victory — is no longer at stake. Only the winner of the FedEx Cup gets a trophy. Had the same rules been in place a year ago, Woods would have not been celebrating anything.
“It’s disappointing,” Woods said. “I wish I could have [qualified]. Last year culminated in a pretty special moment for me and it would have been nice to go back there, but I’ll be watching the guys on TV.”
Woods will not be alone in watching from afar. Some other big names also will sit out the Tour Championship.
Phil Mickelson, who won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, never posted another top-10 this season and had just one top-20. He ended up 48th in the points.
“I’ve had a rough four, five months,” he said. “Probably the worst four, five months stretch of my career. I’m looking forward to having a couple of months off and kind of regrouping and come back fresh.”
Jason Day is also looking forward to a break. The Aussie has struggled for most of this year. Since tying for fifth at the Masters, he has posted just a single top-10 finish. He has dropped to 22nd in the world and came in at 54th in the FedEx standings.
“Below average,” said Day, who didn’t qualify for Atlanta for the first time since 2012. “Very disappointing. I didn’t make the Tour Championship but it happens. Looking forward to some time off.”
So is Jordan Spieth, who for the second straight year didn’t qualify for the season-ending event, this time by a mile. Spieth, who has dropped to 31st in the world, showed glimmers of progress this summer, but he still has not won on the PGA Tour in more than two years. He was 44th in the points.
“I’ve just gotten too inconsistent, too far off in the long game,” Spieth said. “It went down to the short game, but tremendous improvement in my putting. I know exactly why I got off, what happened and how to get it back.”
And so while some high-profile names will be missing at East Lake, the likes of Thomas, Koepka, Patrick Reed, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Matt Kuchar, Gary Woodland, Tony Finau, Adam Scott, defending FedEx champ Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler will battle it out for the big money.
So will Sungjae Im, Kokrak and Abahram Ancer, all of whom qualified for their first Tour Championship and thus the Masters.
The money is nice, but getting that Masters invitation might actually be worth a lot more.
SOURCE: ESPN
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Thursday, June 20, 2019
If you’re someone who loves golf, but don’t have easy access to a course, there’s hope for you.
You can still get really good without access to a golf course
If you had to draw up the perfect scenario necessary to create a great golfer, one of the first things you’d probably mention would be access to a range and a golf course. Sung Hyun Park, former World No. 1 and defending champion of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, wasn’t so lucky. In her first few years playing golf, she barely set foot on the golf course.
“I first started playing when I was nine years old, and I only practiced indoors,” Park said through a translator in her pre-tournament press conference at the KPMG. “It was like a three-meter distance, and I used to hit my shots over there. And playing like that for three years, I probably went on the golf course around four or five times only, which probably means like once a year. And so I always looked forward to going out on to the course and to play.”
If you’re someone who loves golf, but don’t have easy access to a course, there’s hope for you. Park is proof that you can get good—sometimes really, really, good—even if you can’t get on-course as much as you’d like.
We talked to Jason Guss, one of Golf Digest’s best teachers in the state of Michigan, about how you can make a range-centric golf existence work.
Former World No. 1 Sung Hyun Park shares how she learned the game by practicing indoors.https://t.co/XwOuM93F2f
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) June 20, 2019
“If you’re a good visual person you can create holes on the driving range,” says Guss. Doing something as simple as picking two targets and visualizing a fairway between them can help you create a golf hole in your mind.
“You can get into golf course mode, you can visualize and you can get pretty close to the real thing,” said Guss. Creativity is the key. “You have to be really good at using the boundaries of the driving range.”
While there’s a school of thought that says you should spend more time on the golf course than the driving range to become a better player and course manager, there are benefits to logging big hours on the range.
“I had a lot of complaints back then, not being able to play on the course, and I always wanted to play on the course,” said Park. “But looking back, I think that time on the range definitely helped me . . . sort of establish my swing and my shots.”
Guss agrees there’s a hidden upside.
“You’re working more on technique than feel and playing when you’re on on the range,” said Guss. “So if you’re working on it the right way, you’re going to have a technical advantage.”
Moreover, Guss points out that you can be more efficient with your practice when you’re on the range compared to when you’re on the course from a time perspective. You can hit a lot more golf balls spending an hour on the range than you would if you spent that same hour on the course.
There are also golfers out there who have the opposite problem Park did, with access to a golf course but no range.
“If you only get to be on course, which is how I grew up playing,” says Guss, “you have to make time for technique. You have to say, ‘Today I need to work on my technique all throughout the golf course.’ You have to turn the golf course into the driving range. Go out and say, ‘I don’t care what we shoot today, we’re going to work on our swings on the course.'”
Obviously, the ideal scenario would be to have access to both a range and golf course, but if you’re stuck in a lop-sided situation, learn from Park and be willing to make whatever situation, no matter how imperfect, perfect for your development.
“It’s great to have the advantage of being able to play whenever you want and hit balls whenever you want,” says Guss, “but if you’re one who’s stuck on one side of the equation, you have to learn how to create on-course scenarios on the range or make the range atmosphere as close as you can on the golf course.”
SOURCE: GolfDigest
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Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Friday, June 7, 2019
Brooks Koepka, coming off 15-day break, has no concerns heading into Canadian Open
Brooks Koepka, coming off 15-day break, has no concerns heading into Canadian Open
Brooks Koepka didn’t touch a golf club for 15 days after he successfully defended his title in the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black on Long Island.
Yet he isn’t the least bit worried about the state of his game in his return to the PGA Tour this week at the RBC Canadian Open.
“It was nice to kind of recharge mentally and kind of try to soak it in a little bit,” Koepka said of his break from the game after winning his fourth major championship in his last eight starts. “I’ll be fine. I’ve taken longer breaks before and come out and played well. I’m not too concerned with it.”
Why should he be?
He has won the past two editions of the U.S. Open and the past two playings of the PGA Championship. In his last three starts, he finished in a tie for second in the Masters, was fourth in the AT&T Byron Nelson and held off Dustin Johnson by two shots to win the Wanamaker Trophy again.
And he’s the No. 1 player in the world.
Whatever his blueprint is, it’s working. Thus, he showed up at Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Hamilton, Ontario, on Tuesday and hit balls for the first time since he left Long Island. Wednesday he played nine holes in the pro-am.
Seemed pretty good,” Koepka said of his form.
So, too, has been the formula he has followed to peak for the majors. He played the week before winning each of his four major championships. It’s a week he uses to build on his rhythm and sharpen his putting stroke.
“It’s a good golf course. It’s definitely going to be a good test,” said Koepka, 29, who is seeking his seventh PGA Tour title. “You’ve got to hit the fairways, and these greens are quite slopey. So you’ve really got to control your spin. I think it’s actually a perfect setup for next week.”
Ahh, yes, next week. That would be the playing of the 119th U.S. Open, where Koepka will try to become the second player to three-peat in the tournament.
“Yeah, that name has come up in the last year,” Koepka said when he was asked if he had heard of Willie Anderson, the Scot who won the U.S. Open in 1901 and then became the only player to win three in a row starting in 1903.
“I know what I’m chasing,” Koepka said. “But it’s just another golf tournament. You can put some outside pressure on. It’s a major championship. I’ll be up for it, I know that. I enjoy a tough test of golf, and that’s what you’re going to get at a U.S. Open. You know that going in. I enjoy it. It’s fun. It’s fun to me to get on those big stages and try to win a golf tournament.
“I know that the odds are against me to win it. There’s a lot of people that can win that golf tournament. You just need to go out and take care of business, and if you don’t, hey, I gave it my all.”
SOURCE: USAToday
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Saturday, June 1, 2019
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Thursday, May 2, 2019
Postitive Outlook for the Golf Industry
While golf participation is stable, Tiger effect gives industry a boost
As golf industry leaders gathered in the nation’s capital Wednesday, there were likely self-congratulatory messages, obligatory selfies and a celebration by those who see further proof that they continue to grow the game.
But there should also be a moment of thanks to the man who has the biggest impact on the game worldwide just by showing up and, even more significantly, by winning the most coveted major championship in golf.
Tiger Woods wasn’t in Washington for National Golf Day, but there was plenty of talk about the impact his fifth Masters victory has on the industry. According to the latest Golf Industry Report released by the National Golf Foundation, 74 million people watched or read about golf without playing in 2018, an increase of about 12 percent year over year. Part of the growth is “attributable to Woods,” the NGF says.
“When you go beyond the hard-core golf enthusiast and you’re trying to capture the casual masses, it is Tiger. It is only Tiger,” says Patrick Rishe, director of the Sports Business Program at Washington University in St. Louis, when asked about the impact of Woods’ latest win at Augusta National.
It’s no secret that golf faces tough challenges – as demonstrated in the continued trend of course closures in the U.S. (198.5 18-hole equivalent courses closed last year while 12.5 of the same type of courses opened) and the competition the sport faces in trying to attract busy adults and teens who don’t have free time or the resources to play.
But a Tiger resurgence changes the conversation around the state of the game, sports economists say.
“Even if you’re not a fan of his, you can at least appreciate the moment, if you’re being unbiased. You can appreciate the sense of history, and it adds that cool factor back to the sport when he’s playing as well as he’s playing,” Rishe says.
Even if Woods, 43, doesn’t add to his 15 major championships, the industry benefits just from having him compete on Tour.
“It’s going to be great for golf to potentially ride a second wave of Tiger Woods even if all he’s doing is contending; he doesn’t have to win by 15 shots,” says Todd McFall, an assistant teaching professor in economics at Wake Forest. “As long as he’s contending, it’s going to be really great for golf for as long as it happens.
“If you called me in a year and Tiger Woods won another tournament and contended in three or four, golf’s going to be in a lot better place than it would be otherwise.”
Outside of the Tiger effect, the National Golf Foundation provides a fairly positive outlook for the industry, not surprisingly, reporting that the sport’s participation base remains stable. It says about 24.2 million people played golf on a course in 2018, which was up from 23.8 million the previous year. The NGF counts anyone over age 6 in that participation figure.
The report says another 9.3 million exclusively played an off-course form of the game at facilities such as Topgolf or Drive Shack. The game’s overall participant pool was 33.5 million, up 4 percent over last year.
Steve Mona, executive director of We Are Golf, describes the industry as stable and evolving. “Golf used to mean an 8 a.m. tee time wearing khaki slacks, a golf shirt, a visor on forward and metal spikes, playing with a regular group you’ve been playing with for 10 years,” Mona says.
“But now it can mean 8 p.m. wearing cargo shorts and flip flops, an untucked shirt and a hat on backwards at a Topgolf or a Drive Shack. Just like almost any other form of recreation has evolved, so has golf. What we need to do as an industry, in my judgment, is to be open to the fact that people are going to come into the game in different ways.”
Mona acknowledges that not every person who hit balls at Topgolf will go on to play 18 holes on a course. But he’s optimistic that quite a few Topgolfers will get hooked. “We definitely think that that’s complementary to the on-course experience.”
SOURCE: Golfweek
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